designfeedr

These days an online portfolio is mandatory for creatives of every kind. If you don’t have one it will come across like you just crawled out from under a huge world engulfing rock. You also won’t get to reap the benefits of having an online presence. The “A better online portfolio” posts are a series of articles where I give some pointers that will hopefully lead to some food for thought when you build your new (or revised) portfolio site.

Our start up tip is a really simple yet significant one. Place your contact data in the right place where it is immediately visible. Why should you care? I’m going to assume your online portfolio is there for the simple reason to help get you a job or new commissions. The thing is, you’re not the only one, there’s an army of hopefuls out there trying to get a piece of the pie.

Any half decent agency looking for a new employee will get a host of responses when they announce they have a spot open. This company will see one portfolio and CV after another. You can bet a potential client looking for a freelancer also sees his share of online ports before he makes his decision. It’s for this reason that you should make it as easy as possible to contact you. This ensures that when you’re applicant number thirty, you won’t get passed by simply because the recruiter viewing the port has seen more than his share that day. Believe me, this does happen.

So what’s the right place for your contact data? Basically you’re looking to add the data to an area that is immediately visible. This means placing it somewhere in the top, or at least the top-mid section of your main page (above the fold as web designers call it). A good and often seen spot is in the header opposite of the logo but sidebars are also good bets. If you feel you have no place for extra data above the fold, then you can still put your contact data in your footer.

While we’re on the topic of contact data there’s one more thing I’d like to stress. Make sure your email is click-able and make sure the text is selectable (the latter only being a concern for flash sites). The last thing you want to do is make things harder for someone who has decided to contact you!

Below are some portfolio sites with useful placement of the contact data